The present invention relates to methods for fabricating semiconductor devices, which enable semiconductor elements to be mounted on a substrate in a self-aligned manner, and also relates to apparatuses for fabricating the semiconductor devices.
In recent years, mounting methods in which a fluidic self-assembly (hereinafter referred to as “FSA”) technique is used have been developed as one type of device-mounting method.
In the FSA technique, devices (hereinafter referred to as “function blocks”), ranging in size from 10 μm to several hundred μm and having given shapes, are spread in a liquid to form a slurry. The liquid (suspension) in the form of slurry is poured over the surface of a substrate made of, e.g., silicon having therein recessed portions which are substantially the same in size and shape as the function blocks, whereby the function blocks spread in the liquid are disposed into the recessed portions and thereby mounted in the predetermined positions on the substrate.
FSA techniques are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,545,291, 5,783,856, 5,824,186 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,904,545, for example.
However, these conventional FSA techniques have the disadvantage of very low productivity, because the function blocks fall and are disposed into the recessed portions in the substrate randomly, and in order to make all of the recessed portions formed in the substrate have the function blocks therein, the function blocks have to be spread in large quantities over the surface of the substrate.